On October 9th, iHollywood Film Fest hosted, The Alternate Film Finance Panel aimed at showcasing the very latest trends in Hollywood for filmmakers getting finance for their projects. The event was viewed virtually to a live audience across America, the UK, Canada, and Australia with a key takeaway from all panelists being, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are going to be a big part of financing films in the future.
Speaking on the panel were industry experts including James Pratt from Mogul Productions, Peter Shiao from Immortal Studios, Messiah Jacobs from Four Screens, and John Viscount from The Peace Entertainment Project.
Since COVID, the film industry has had to adapt to major changes, In particular around streamers taking more market share in distribution and viewers getting more comfortable with consuming content on the small screen over the big screen of cinema. However, one of the biggest hurdles to breaking into the industry is still the same, how do producers secure the necessary funds needed to create a project?
“We are going to be using more NFTs in our slate,” said Peter Shiao from Immortal Studios, “being able to utilize our film’s characters in NFTs is something we are concentrating on at present, It’s exciting because NFTs open up a whole new door for revenue and make the films more appealing to an audience”.
James Pratt from Mogul Productions is well versed with how NFT’s are boosting Hollywood productions. Mogul was the first to conduct a live Hollywood NFT auction when it auctioned a Rob Prior artwork for over $182,500 USD earlier this year. Since then, they have been at the forefront of pushing NFTs as an industry-leading NFT marketplace focused specifically on film and entertainment. $10 million worth of NFTs have been sold through their platform to date.
“There are now opportunities for filmmakers that have never existed before thanks to NFTs” said Pratt, for example, In the past if you made a short film it often would just end up on the festival circuit and wouldn’t generate any sort of money or profit, now you could do NFTs on that short film such as deleted scenes, artwork or even the films poster. This new income stream can then go towards funding your next feature film.
This same business model -can be used for feature films, doing NFTs on the film’s artwork, deleted scenes, etc. will help fund the sequel on your next slate or generate revenue to offset the investors’ money.
During the panel, Messiah Jacobs from Four Screens and John Viscount of The Peace Entertainment Project spoke about how funding is all about thinking in terms of a slate of projects rather than one-off films, because investors are looking at your company constantly generating a return. This means throughout the year you can look at a certain project and see if one is in pre-production, then another one is filming or in post. This is the thinking behind an investor who wants to see activity from the production company, NFTs allow creators to generate more activity before a film begins production and afterward.
“NFTs are transforming the creative industry. NFTs offer creatives a possible revenue stream, the means of financing their project or promote what they are doing.” Joyce Chow, Founder and Festival Director of the iHollywood Film Fest (International Hollywood Film Festival) was delighted to offer this opportunity for the audience to hear from individuals at the top of their respected fields and with an international outlook on the next 5 years of filmmaking.
At the forefront of the future, NFTs look to provide opportunities for talent all over the world that would have never been possible just a decade ago.
